Title

Author

Honors Program

Fine and Performing Arts Honors

Date of Award

12-2012

Thesis Professor(s)

Kenneth Hall

Thesis Professor Department

Art and Design

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze New World Baroque art as a medium of syncretism allowing the reconciliation and fusion of discrepant cultures. This study will explore the region of New Spain as defined by the Baroque period by analyzing Mexico as a place whose identity was defined by the transcultural and hybrid components of the Baroque and as a place where a New World Baroque aesthetic first started to appear. Transculturation and hybridization will be analyzed historically and aesthetically as factors for the creation of a New World Identity. The term New World Baroque will be used to define art in the Spanish colonies during the Baroque period, the term New Spain will be used to refer to colonial Mexico, transculturation will refer to the exchange of ideas and intermingling of cultures and hybridization will refer to the outcomes of such. This analysis will begin by providing a definition of Baroque with the purpose of establishing an understanding of the main characteristics of the movement aesthetically and chronologically. Spain will be analyzed to provide evidence of the effects of coming into contact with a multicultural society on the Baroque aesthetic; followed by a historical analysis of the events that would result in the creation of the new world. Then transculturation will be analyzed as an answer to the conquest and as guided by the Catholic Church. Then a timeline will list important events leading up to the Baroque period, and finally an exploration of hybrid art will serve to exemplify a well-established hybrid identity culminating with a brief analysis of some of Frida Kahlo’s work as an embodiment of the New World Baroque aesthetic.

Document Type

Honors Thesis - Open Access

Creative Commons License

Recommended Citation

Flores, Pedro, "Transculturation and Hybridization in New World Baroque Art: A Study of a New World Identity as Defined by History and Art." (2012). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 54. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/54